|| PATIENCE IS A CONQUERING VIRTUE ||

Any child born in this universe does not start speaking immediately after birth, it takes at least 9 months or one year till the child starts speaking. However intelligent the child is, it may learn early if all its sense organs are working efficiently and also given the exposure of language efficiently. Until the first year, all the parents are patient thinking that like other children, their child will start speaking too. After one year, the parents that do not want to accept that their child may have difficulty will wait, and also will keep thinking that a miracle will happen with their child. Some parents do understand other children and understand that their child may have difficulty unlike normal children and instead of being patient, act accordingly and work hard to overcome the challenges. These are the parents that have patience when the child needs support. You plough seeds to grow a plant which needs some time. The seeds need enough sunlight and minerals to grow. If done well, only then can the plants give us fruits. We need to be patient to get fruits from plants. Every natural thing happens in this universe through the process. We need to have patience.

In Mahabharata, Yudhishthira as a king was humble and intelligent. Pandavas were very well trained by gurus and had a friend, Lord Krishna but still had to fight with Kauravas to win over dharma and to help society at large. Though God was there throughout the war, he wanted them to fight for their rights with patience and wait for the right time to fight back in the right direction to win over dharma. Intelligence, strategy planning, power only works well if you have the patience to use them in the right way. Lord Krishna also wanted the Pandavas to learn the process and execute each and every attack with the stability of mind and patience, using their skills in the highest virtue. You can conquer anything in this world with your power, but real conquering is only when you have patience as the highest virtue. Every war in this universe or every loving person in this universe has taught us.

I have worked with so many specially challenged kids and one thing that has given me the most success is having the patience to deal with them. I remember a kid came to us at the age of one and half years. He was an only child and his parents and grandparents pampered him a lot at home. We had diagnosed that child with hearing loss but to fit the right hearing aid to his requirement, we needed to know his audiogram that tells the exact thresholds of hearing. He was so stubborn that he was never ready to do the test. I used to sit with him in a cabin where I'd do the test. He would scroll, jump, cry and do every possible thing to avoid the test. I used to sit quietly in the room and tell him that he could leave the room only if did the test. This happened for almost 15 days. The parents would bring him, we'd take him to the room forcibly to do the test and then let him go. On the 16th day, he told me he'd do the test with gestures and that day we found the right diagnosis and fitted him with good technology hearing aids. Today, he has completed normal education from his school, college and passed his engineering with great results and got married and is now supporting his family. Having worked with such kids, I feel patience is the ultimate virtue in our profession.

Today, there's a scientific revolution. Technology is making the world smaller and faster. Everywhere, people in this universe feel that everything can be achieved faster if you have money and power like giving birth to a child or getting the child admitted to the best school, giving them a great education, good results, a job and even getting married in a fancy style or celebrating every episode of life but we forget to teach them one thing, that is having patience in life. You provide facilities to your child but the child does not have the patience to relish in the right manner. If they don't get the facilities they are used to, they get angry and misbehave. If they don't get food on time, they panic and get frustrated. They give up on relationships so fast. If they can't have money like others, they get depressed. Some incidents lead to giving up lives also. The feeling of having patience in life starts from the child being born. If the child is hungry, immediately some mothers start feeding their babies and sometimes keep feeding. Having patience in doing everything in life starts from there. One should feed at regular intervals of time and only when a child is really hungry. The virtue of patience needs to be taught.

Many times, at a later stage of life, when you come to earning for yourself to be in a rat race, you compromise yourself. You even end up doing wrong work/cheating people if you don't have the patience to have everything in life coming at the right time. I feel the virtue of real patience gives you dignity in life. It gives you the remote of your own life. With patience in life, you can control your attitude, your actions, your behaviour, what you eat, what you follow, whom you unfollow as u understand the situations with patience very well. Having learned patience also teaches you how to speak to yourself and also how to react to others. Your behaviour sets boundaries around you and then you are untouchable. The best examples of our country are Mahatma Gandhi ji, Mother Teresa, etc. Think about it!

Patience pays. In 2004, we started the JOSH Foundation on a small scale just to create awareness to help hearing-impaired kids. Since hearing impairment is not seen, not much work is done. We implement technology in all electronic media but when it comes to hearing aids, we don't accept technology. In 2000, in one of the Denmark magazines, I had given an interview that technology will make a revolution for the hearing impaired but we, as professionals, need to create confidence in parents. Even parents need to work with kids understanding technology. Earlier for the NGO, philanthropic donors were not ready to believe that technology can make a difference but when we worked it with a few kids with patience and established results, the work at JOSH Foundation is just getting multiplied. We have helped more than 1300 kids with digital technology till now and have already received funding to help more kids. The criteria throughout this process are to work with ethics and patience so that the kids receive the right and quality treatment. Great things happen when you make them happen.

You have a baby in your uterus. It takes 9 months to deliver, so you wait patiently till then. Once the baby is born and starts speaking by 9 months or one year so you wait patiently. Your child finishes schooling and graduation and starts earning money by the age of 20 or 25; you wait patiently for them to earn. Now, once you start earning, you wait patiently to earn money and buy your house. You earn to support your family. You run your company to grow. With each step, you wait patiently but in routine life, managing relationships, working for nature or nurturing yourself in the best possible manner, somehow you forget this virtue of patience. It is there among all of us but hides away somewhere in running our race. I feel that the people who are successful in life have this quality and always make decisions based on where they want to be.

Spreading positivity, whether people follow or not, one day will bring results. I keep writing, thinking that by doing this, I'm changing; I'm learning patience for people to start acting. Sometimes, what you do with your passion may not bring fast results but if you have the patience, it can generate wonderful results. For positivity, patience is the highest level of virtue which I have understood by writing and working with specially-abled kids.